Mean Streak(80)

“I have to wrap up something here before moving on, that’s all.”

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“No.”

“Does it have to do with Westboro?”

“No. This is something else.” Before she demanded to know information he wouldn’t share, he gave her the number of another burner phone. “Same rules. Call it only if you have to.”

“I will. Will you call me?”

“Sure.”

After a beat, she said, “You’re taking on more trouble, aren’t you?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Swear to God,” she said, “if I knew where you were, I would call Jack Connell right this minute and tell him.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

She blew out a gust of breath and, with defeat, said, “No, I wouldn’t. But he did say something about you today that I can’t get out of my head.”

“This ought to be good.”

“He said that it might actually be a relief to you if you were found.”

“A relief?”

“That was the word he used.”

“Then he’s full of shit. If he comes around again, tell him to f*ck off.”

She laughed. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Her laughter was a good note on which to end the call. Before either of them became maudlin, before they had to actually say good-bye, he disconnected. Then he removed the battery from the phone and ground the phone itself beneath his boot until it was broken into bits.

He knelt and swept all the pieces of the phone off the ground into his hand and dropped them in his coat pocket to dispose of later. Then he dug into his jeans pocket and took out the tiny silver trinket, the token that he’d kept as a tangible link to Emory, not realizing until today what vital importance it had.

Thoughtfully rubbing it between his fingers, he gave the hospital one last look, and, convinced that nothing untoward was likely to happen tonight, he started back toward where he’d left his truck. He had a lot of work to do tonight. Busy work. Tasks that should keep his mind off Emory.

But wouldn’t.

For four years, he’d lived with loneliness and had even reconciled himself to it.

But in only four days his tolerance for it had expired. It had begun to hurt.





Chapter 27



Emory sat bolt upright, gasping.

Wildly, she looked around, expecting to see the log walls, the lamp with the burlap shade, him.

But he wasn’t there, and this wasn’t the cabin, and the Floyd brothers weren’t about to barge through the door with a loaded shotgun.

She was in her hospital room, safe and secure.

So why was her heart racing? Why was she so oxygen-deprived that her hands and feet were tingling?

She recognized the classic symptoms of a panic attack, but for the life of her, she didn’t know what had brought it on. A bad dream? Deep-seated guilt from having lied to law enforcement officers?

Either would do it.

But she sensed the reason for her acute anxiety was something more imperative. She got out of bed and dragged the IV pole with her over to the door. Opening it only a crack, she stuck her head through and looked in both directions. The corridor was empty. No one lurking outside her room. None of the nursing staff in sight. Nothing threatening.

She backed into the room and closed the door.

She went into the bathroom to use the toilet and bathe her face with a damp cloth. The tile floor was cold against her bare feet. On her way back to the bed, she retrieved the bag containing her belongings from the closet and carried it with her to the bed. As she rummaged through it looking for her socks, she conceded that Jeff was right. Her running clothes did smell rather— Suddenly prompted by intuition, she upended the bag and shook the contents into her lap, convinced that the answer to what had caused her panic attack was something within that bag.

She rifled through the articles rapidly, then more slowly, handling them individually, taking them into account one by one.

When realization struck, the shock was electrifying.

She sat for a moment trying to decide what to do, then, with trembling hands, she punched in a number on her cell phone, and waited anxiously for the call to be answered.

After several rings, a sleepy voice said, “Emory? Is everything okay?”

“Alice! I apologize for waking you.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I mean I’m not, or I wouldn’t be calling you at— What time is it?”

“Doesn’t matter. What’s wrong? You sound frantic.”

She forced herself to calm down and take deep breaths. “I need to ask you something, and I didn’t want to wait until morning.”

“I’m listening.”

“Today, when all of you were in my hospital room and I was describing the fall I took, and hitting my head, all that, did I mention breaking my sunglasses?”

“What?”

“Think back, Alice. Please. It’s important. Did I refer to breaking my sunglasses?”

“I don’t remember. Why?”

She swallowed with effort. “Because Jeff asked me earlier tonight who had repaired them. I told him that one of the nurses must have, when actually it was the man in the cabin.”